Grad Students
under
Rob Kremer

Thesis-based

Filip Balas
Gabriel Becerra

Allen Chi
Jason Heard
Chad La Fournie

Jerrall Prakash
Paul Werbicki

Course-based

David Baker
Guy Davis
Jim Gee
Ibrahim Jadalown
George Luo

 

Past Students

Roberto Flores
Alan Goodbrand
Kim Johnson
Bradley Jones
Dong Pan
Quin Wang

Withdrawn

Cameron Roe
David Menks
 

For new students: Potential MSc topics


Thesis-based Students

Filip Balas
Filip Balas


email:
balas@cpsc.ucaglary.ca, ubivis@shaw.ca
www:
http://sern.ucalgary.ca/~balas/CPSCsite/
office/phone: ICT 527 / 210-9559
Program:
MSc, full time, thesis-based
Start Date:
2002, Sept
Area:

Topic:

Gabriel Becerra
Gabriel Becerra
email:
avala@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
www:
http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~ayala
office/phone:
ICT 524S / 220-9546
Program:
BSc, CPSC, University of Calgary
Date:
Sept, 2004 -
Area:
CASA, security systems
Topic:


Allen Chi 
Allan Chi


email:
achi@nortelnetworks.com, allen.chi@shaw.ca, chi@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
www:

office/phone: ICT 524Q
Program:
MSc, part time, thesis-based
Start Date:
2002, Sept
Area:

Topic:

Jason Heard
Jason Heard

sts
email:
heard@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
www:

office/phone:
ICT 524 / 220-9546
Program:
BSc, CPSC, University of Calgary, Graduated F02
Date:
May 2003 - 
Area:
Agent based systems
Topic:
Trust support in CASA agents

Chad La Fournie
Chad La Fournie

email:
chadlafournie@shaw.ca
www:
http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~laf/
office/phone: ICT 524T / 210-9546
Program:
MSc, SENG, full time, thesis-based
Date:
2003, Jan
Area:
CASA
Topic:

Jerrall Prakash
Jerrall Prakash

email:
jjprakas@ucalgary.ca
www:
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~prakash/
office/phone: ICT 524R / 210-
Program:
MSc, SENG, full time, thesis-based
Date:
2003, Jan
Area:
Agent-based systems, security
Topic:
Security frameworks in agent based systems

Paul Werbicki
Paul Werbicki

email:
werbicki@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
www:
http://www.criticaljunction.com/werbicki/
office/phone:
 
Program:
MSc, SENG, thesis-based
Start Date:
2002, Jan
Area:
Proxy objects
Topic:
Paul will develop a system to generate a proxy interface between JAVA and other languages such as C++, VB, etc.  As a non-trivial example, he will proxy various CASA objects for use in other languages such as C++ or VB.  His system should be able to easily produce a C++ agent (or a VB, etc. agent) that "proxies" the Java version and is fully available to subclass in C++ (or VB).  .h files (and the VB equivalent) would be automatically generated.  Furthermore, all the other CASA objects used by an agent could likewise be converted to C++ (MLMessage, etc).  This should make it easy to always have an up-to-date C++ version of CASA library. 

Course-based Students

David Baker


email:
baker@neotec.com
www:
http://sern.ucalgary.ca/~baker/
Program:
MSc, SENG, part time, course-based
Start Date:

Area:

Topic:

Guy Davis


email:
davis@guydavis.ca
www:
http://www.guydavis.ca/seng/
Program:
MSc, SENG, part time, course-based
Start Date:

Area:

Topic:

Jim Gee 

email:
jim.gee@home.com, jgee@nortelnetworks.com
www:
http://sern.ucalgary.ca/~jimgee/
Program:
MSc, SENG, part time, course-based
Start Date:

Area:

Topic:

Ibrahim Jadalown

email:
jadalow@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
www:
http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~jadalow/
Program:
MSc, SENG, part time, course-based
Start Date:
2002, Sept
Area:

Topic:

George Luo 

email:
george_luohm@hotmail.com, luo@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
www:
http://sern.ucalgary.ca/~luo/homepage.htm
office/phone: ICT524P, 210-9546
Program:
MSc, SENG, full time, course-based
Start Date:
2002, Sept
Area:

Topic:

David Menks

email:
dbmenks@ucalgary.ca
www:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dbmenks/
Program:
MSc, SENG, part time, course-based, withdrawn
Start Date:

Area:

Topic:


Past Students

Roberto Flores 

email:
robertof@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
www:
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~robertof/
Program:
PhD, full time
Graduated:
July, 2002
Not at: Visiting Research Fellow
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Instituto di Science e Tecnologie della Cognizione
Viale Marx 15, 00137, Roma, Italia
Email: robertof@ip.rm.cnr.it
Voice: 39 (06) 86090518
Fax: 39 (06) 824737
Area:
Multi-Agent Systems
Topic:
Modeling Agent Conversations for Action
(MSc Thesis):
Programming Distributed Collaboration Interaction Through the World Wide Web (http://sern.ucalgary.ca/students/theses/RobertoFlores/)
PhD Disertation:
Modelling Agent Converstations for Action 
(http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~robertof/)
Disertation Abstract: Conversations are sequences of messages exchanged among interacting agents.  For conversations to be meaningful, agents ought to follow conversational principles governing the exchange of messages at any point in a conversation.  These principles must be defined in publicly verifiable terms (if they are to be used in open environments) and must allow the flexible composition of conversations (if they are to account for the context in which they occur).  The main contribution of this thesis is to define a unified model of conversations for action that fulfills these requirements.  The conversational principle followed in this model is the negotiation of shared social commitments, which entails the adoption and discard of obligations to act.  This principle is encoded using conversation policies, that is, rules of conversational behaviour that govern the sequencing of message according to the state of interacting agents.  The applicability of this model is illustrated through the modelling of two example conversations, one on the Contract Net Protocol, and the second on an electronic bookstore scenario.  These examples show the definition of speech acts in terms of their composition (using illocutionary points), and their use and consequences in conversations (using conversation policies)

Alan Goodbrand 

email:

www:

Graduated:
MSc, 2000
Now at:
CP
Area:
Software Engineering, Formal Methods
Thesis:
Integrateing Informal and Formal Methods
Thesis Abstract: From any Requirements Specification, the intention is to develop a workable system.  It is therefore the responsibility of the Requirements Engineer to state the requirements in such a way as to minimize ambiguity and increase precision. 

Formal methods were developed to express requirements which were not open to interpretation.  They are best used in areas that suit expression via mathematics.  Spatially referenced data seems well suited to this type of specification due to the fact that it is represented by sets.  Formal methods are best utilized in the areas of set acquisition, manipulation, retrieval and representation. 

This thesis sets out to show that a Requirements Specification for a system using Spatially Refereced data can beefit in the areas of precision and reduced ambiguity with the inegration of fomal methods.  Changes make to the Informal Requirements as a result of their formal spacification will be used to show this


Kim Johnson 

email:
kim@graham.ca, johnsonk@cadvision.com
www:

Graduated:
MSc, 2001
Now at:
Graham
Area:
Software Engineering, Open Source Dev.
Thesis:
A Descriptive Process Model for Open-Source Software Development (http://sern.ucalgary.ca/students/theses/KimJohnson/thesis.htm)
Thesis Abstract: Open Source is a term used to describe a tradition of open standards, shared source code, and collaborative software development. However the methodology itself has yet to be captured definitively in writing. The single best description is Eric Raymond's (1998a) The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and while excellent, it is not an academic work but more a pseudo-evangelical report from the field. Consequently, the current perception of what constitutes open-source software development remains somewhat subjective. 

This thesis attempts to describe an introductory process model for open-source software development. Common characteristics are identified and discussed with specific examples from various open-source projects. The results lend support to suggestions that open-source software development follows an adaptive lifecycle, with a flexible management model emphasizing leadership, collaboration, and accountability. Moreover, open source would seem to represent an alternative approach to distributed software development, able to offer useful information about common problems as well as possible solutions


Bradley Jones 

email:
brad@snowdolphin.com
www:

Graduated:
MSc, 2002
Now at:
Snowdolphin
Area:
Software Engineering, Agent based systems
Thesis:
Social Commitments and the Contract Net (http://sern.ucalgary.ca/students/theses/BradJones/)
Thesis Abstract: Software agents are a new paradigm for the design of distributed computing systems. Collaboration is necessary within a multi-agent system. Agents must be able to converse in order to collaborate effectively. Current agent communication languages have been criticized for not fully supporting agent conversations due to a lack of conversational coherence. 

A model of agent communication based upon social commitments has recently been proposed in order to address this lack of coherence. However, there exists only trivial examples demonstrating this models application. The Contract Net is a well known task allocation mechanism that requires non-trivial communication. Through the use of formal methods and software implementation, this thesis demonstrates that a communication model based on social commitments can be used to support the communication needs inherent within the bidding mech-anism of the Contract Net protocol


Dong Pan 

email:

www:

Graduated:
MSc, 1998
Now at:

Area:
Software Engineering, Design Patterns
Thesis:
The Application of Design Patterns in Knowledge Inference Engine (http://sern.ucalgary.ca/students/theses/DongPan/)
Thesis Abstract: Software design paterns are a literature form to describe successful solutions to common software problems.  Design patterns are a valuable technique in the sofware engineering problem-solving discipline.  Design patterns cature experts' sucessful experience, make implicit design knowledge explicit, and explain the deep structure and rationale of a design.  The design pattern community has written and documented many design patterns -- hoowever, no paper or book has been written in the knowledge representation domain.  Description Logic based systems are knowledge representation and reasoning systems that support a richer representation formalism than standard rule based systems.  CLASSIC is small description logic with a well-define sytax. 

In order to verify that design patters are applicable to the knowledge representation domain, CLASSIC was chosen as a model for the design of a knowledge inference engine.  A number of design patterns were applied to the design and implementation of the system.  The results show that design patterns are applicable to the domain.  In addition, the use of design patterns makes the system more flexible and extensible


Quin Wang 

email:

www:

Graduated:
MSc, 1999
Now at:

Area:
Software Engineering, Corba
Project:
The Applicability of Mobile Agents: A Comparative Study
Thesis Abstract: Mobile agents offer different opportunities from the client/server mechanism for structuring and implementing destributed systems.  As an emerging technology, it is widely applied in various applications, including electronic commerce and network management.  The benefits of mobile agents have been discussed a lot, but very little effort has been mode to verify their claimed advantages over the traditional client/server paradigm. 

This research aims to develop an in-depth understanding of the mobile agent mechanism by designing and implementing mobile agent based applications, and to evaluate the applicability of mobile agent applications based on comparisons between the client/server mechanism and the mobile agent mechanism.  Real and concrete example applicaions are develeoped to provide the basis of verification.  The final discussion after implementation concludes that mobile agents are appealing as a design paradigm as a whole, even though the author cannot find overwhelming reasons to apply mobile agents in the individual verification examples.


Withdrawn
Cameron Roe 
Cam


email:
cameron_roe@transcanada.com
www:

office/phone:
Program:
MSc, SENG, full time, thesis-based
Start Date:

Area:
Software Engineering
Topic:
Design Patterns

David Menks
David Menks


email:
dbmenks@ucalgary.ca
www:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dbmenks/
Program:
MSc, SENG, part time, course-based, withdrawn 2003/02/24
Start Date:

Area:

Topic:

 

Last updated 2006-01-02 10:52
Rob Kremer